Face Up to Racism: 2015-16 National Survey

Professor Kevin Dunn
and Katie Blair led a team of researchers to measure the extent and variation
of racist attitudes and experiences in Australia. The study was commissioned by
the television network SBS for a documentary entitled 'Is Australia Racist?'
released on Sunday 26th February 2017. The research team included Dr
Oishee Alam, Dr Alanna Kamp and Rosalie Atie.

The Project

This project
measured the extent and variation of racist attitudes and experiences in
Australia. It examines Australians attitudes to cultural diversity,
discomfort/intolerance of specific groups, ideology of nation, perceptions of
Anglo-Celtic cultural privilege, and belief in racialism, racial separatism and
racial hierarchy. The project also explored targets experiences of racism and
the circumstances in which these events occur. We examined the different forms
racism takes, the various spheres of life in which incidents occur, the
frequency of incidents, responses to incidents (undertaken by both bystanders
and targets) and the impact of those experiences on victims.

The survey results
were used to inform the documentary Is
Australia Racist? The documentary, compared by Ray Martin, broadly
investigated the question Is Australia
Racist? by testing our survey findings through recorded field experiments.
A number of hidden camera social experiments were conducted, accompanied by
interviews with both victims and perpetrators of racism. Throughout the
documentary experts like Professors Kevin Dunn, Yin Paradies and Andrew
Jakubowicz provided expert opinion on the events that unfold, explaining, for
example, why bystanders did or did not respond to a specific incident of
racism.

The documentary was
one of a number of programs featured on the television network SBS, from 26th
February to 5th March 2017 as part of Face
Up To Racism week – a week during which SBS sought to
encourage greater understanding, inspire change and support an inclusive.

Sample

An online survey of residents throughout Australia generated
a completed sample of 6001 (see Technical Manual (PDF, 379.42 KB) (opens in a new window).
The survey was undertaken between July – August 2015 and November 2016. The
survey is largely representative of the Australian population. 52 per cent of
respondents are female and 48 per cent male. 2.3 per cent of the sample is
Indigenous Australians. 72 per cent of respondents are born in Australia. The
most common countries of birth were United Kingdom (7.6%), New Zealand (2.4%),
India (2.4%), Malaysia (1.4%) and China (1.1%, excluding SARS and Taiwan). 18.3
per cent of sample also spoke a LOTE at home or in their community. The most
common languages included Cantonese (1.6%), Mandarin (1.4%), Italian (1.3%),
Greek (0.9%) and Chinese (0.9%).

Key Findings

The key findings of
the survey include:

The vast majority
of respondents (80.4%) believe it is a good thing for a society to be made up
of different cultures.

A large proportion
of respondents (77%) appreciate the need to challenge racism and for there to
be anti-racism initiatives. Seventy-six per cent of respondents also expressed
a commitment to personal action.

Despite these
findings high levels of antipathy were found towards various groups of
Australians.

27.6 per cent of respondents indicated they
would be 'extremely' or 'very concerned' if a relative were to marry a Muslim.
In total, 63 per cent of respondents expressed some degree (ranging from
slightly-extremely) of intolerance/discomfort with Muslim Australians.

51.4 per cent expressed anti-Middle Eastern
sentiment.

43.9 per cent of respondents expressed
anti-African sentiment.

Most Australians
recognise that racism exists within Australia (79.3%).

Experiences of
racism amongst the respondents were quite high:

34.8
per cent of participants had experienced racism on public transport or in the
street.

32.8
per cent of participants had experienced
racism in the work place.

32.8
per cent of participants had experienced within an educational institution.